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Published: October 2nd 2009
Another chapter coming to its end: Australia. Time to write down a few new lines for our 'mates' back home!
Well, we have been definitely been honouring our name “boysontheroad” lately, as that is exactly what we have been doing for the last couple of weeks: being on the road. Being on the road for quite some miles, I may add. We have driven exactly 5870 kilometers in just 20 days. Not bad is it? :-) We started up in the tropical north of Australia, in Darwin, and then made our way down to the arid center, after which we backed up again to Darwin to drop off our campervan. So, more simply put : we went down an then up again, doing almost the same route twice. Quite crazy if you consider the distances up here, but we didn't have much choice: we've won a contest on the internet and got our campervan 10 days for free. Because it was such a small dealer we had to start and end our trip in Darwin. But don't worry: we had a great time being on the road!!! Being on the road that long puts you into another state of mind
and it's only then that you realize how immense Australia really is. The roads are all straight lines and go on endlessly. In the center the landscape doesn't change much: it's just a big big sandy red desert, dotted by small bushes and the occasional tree. The desert landscape in the middle is often interrupted by dramatic rock formations, which are also the main tourist attractions (more about that later....). Up in the north it gets more tropical and a lot greener. Anyway, whether you are up in the tropical north or down in the desert center: you can drive 200 kilometers here without seeing anyone or anything, wondering: is this the right road???
Talking about being on the road; another thing in Australia is that people say hello just because you're driving on the same road as they do, in the opposite direction. But not all of them! I think that the drivers we passed on the 5870 km we drove, half of them put up their hand while we didn't, and the other half didn't while we did! A bid annoying... It would be a great idea to either oblige drivers to waive at passing cars, or
prohibit it ;-). The second option may be the best one, so they can watch the road and watch out for the animals along it (many kangaroos, wallabies, sometimes cows and yes they even have wild camels and horses up here!).
Yeps, that's another thing about being on the road: it can be quiet dangerous. For starters, there are all the wild animals you have to keep an eye on. We didn't hit any big animal, but we have seen kangaroos, camels, cows, etc....right next to the road. On the other hand, Australia does count about 3 birds less after these boys passed through... sorry about that Gaia! It were little birds flying over the road in a glimpse of an eye, hitting our campervan causing no damage. (If Charles Darwin was still amongst us, he'd predict that the genes and the behavior of those birds would adapt to the fact that men installed roads on their territory, and that in a couple of hundreds of years, they'll fly over it at a few meters higher... 'Survival of the fittest' as Charles said.)
Secondly, roads can be dangerous because they get very boring after a while. They just
go on and on forever, no corners, just straight lines, and the landscapes doesn't change much either. It's easy to loose attention then. Slip marks on the roads and the accompanying car wrecks along the side are common and they are sad reminders to how deadly these endless roads sometimes can be. But don't worry, if we posted this blog, boysontheroad are already off the road!
Our campervan itself and camping around we liked a lot, it gives you a sense of freedom. If necessary, you can just park up anywhere, cook yourself a meal and have a good nights sleep. It really is the best way to discover Australia, although one might wish to have booked a hotel with aircon as temperatures do sizzle up to 40 degrees at noon. Nights get very sticky sometimes, sleeping in a campervan, except for the center that has more of a desert climate with cooler nights.
Well, I guess we now have to tell you one by one what we saw the last three weeks here in Australia. Hmmmm, alphabetically or in chronology? this can get boring and we don't want you to get bored. We want to keep our
dear readers interested you see; we will not give you a boring list. But still, here are some of the nicest things we visited, experienced or things we just want to tell. In random order (or otherwise said: what's just popping up in our mind):
* Just the alien look of australia's nature. Try to imagine: you are standing with your feet in dark red sand. In front of you there are some bright yellow grasses protruding from the red sand. Further down you can see white tree barks, mounting out in lush green tree tops. Above that nothing but a clear blue sky. It's a painters dream! The red sand, yellow grasses, green from the trees and then a blue skye, sometimes it really resembles a surreal painting from Dali.
* Termite mounds : you see heaps of it driving through the Nothern Territory! Sometimes more than 2 meters high, and we did see a 'termite mounds forrest', resembling a bid the stone forrest in China, but than in Mini Europe-style.
* Bat colony: in Elsey national park, we were lucky enough to see a bat colony of 250.000 of the little guys. The tree tops
were black of them. Really a strange feeling to walk through the woods with a bat colony like that above your hat. The ground was full of their droppings and believe me: these little guys stink like hell!
* Uluru: Located in the hearth of Australia, Uluru is your standard picture post card of Australia. Most famous and most touristic visited site in australia, it is THE symbol of Australia.We didn't expect much of Uluru as we thought it would be run over by fat tourists and busloads of them. Turned out it wasn't like that at all. Uluru really IS magical and it does get 'under your skin'. It's a giant big red stone, and when I speak of giant I really mean GIANT. It seems like it was dropped in the middle of the desert by some aliens. Really weird. The colors of Uluru change constantly by the sun; from almost yellow, to orange and dark red. The stone is red because there is al lot of iron in it and as iron tends to rust, the surface of Uluru looks like it's rusting. You think you can peel the skin of it's surface. It looks that
worn out.
* Kings Canyon: A big canyon in the center of australia. Shaped by wind and water to some strange forms. Awesome, they would say here!
* Ormiston gorge, Edith falls and the falls in Litchfield Park. Again very nice rock formations and a waterfall where you can take a nice dip. The top 5 of our waterfalls you can find in our pictures.
* Aboriginal rock art: About 50.000 years old and very frequent up in the north you have the, where you find the best examples of these early cave drawings.
* Crocodiles. After the rocks, come the crocs! The second biggest attraction here. They are really everywhere! You can't just go swimming when you feel like it. In the sea you have a lot of salt water crocs that would like to have a bite from you for lunch. Inland they also have loads of fresh water crocs that live in rivers, but are not really maneaters.Still, you don't want to come across one when you are practising your crawl. We did a few boat trips on inland rivers and you really see a lot of them, just lying around and lazing
in the sun.
* Spending the night in a very scary petrol station along the way. It was getting dark and as it is very dangerous to drive at night ( the animals start wandering around then) we had no choice but to pull over and spend the night at the next stop. That next stop was Barrow Creek. Just a small, very untidy gas station in the middle of nowhere. A graveyard next to it, lots of garbage and rusting oil barrels lying around, barking dogs, a half collapsed building on the other side, all that in the middle of the desert. You see it in some scary movies but you never think these places really exist. Anyone seen that movie about a serial killer in the australian desert, torturing and murdering backpacking campervan tourists, as they passed by??? It was a movie based on true facts.The police got the serial killer locked behind bars now, but well, I think we now know where this serial killer used to live: Barrow Creek!
* Helicopter flight: for Bart's birthday we did a small helicopter flight of about 10 minutes. Our first heli flight!
* Aboriginals. As we
came here, we had an image of indiginous people living in national parks, throwing their spears as they did for 1000's of years... Well, that's not reality : in the towns and villages you pass, you see them everywhere, integrated or integrating with the Aussies. It took us by surprise that both communities still have issues towards one another, as you can notice when you hear the news on the radio. E.g. : aboriginals don't want people to drink alcohol near their sacred places (like Uluru), but the Aussies want to enjoy a glass of wine watching the sunset up there. Or : aparently when aboriginal criminals get convicted, judges give them quicker a jail sentence then when an Aussie is the one on trial...
That's about everything we have to tell for now. We are now off to Indonesia again where we are going to take a holiday from our holiday. We will do some island hopping and beach spotting for the next weeks, slowing dowing our pace a bit. Let's just hope there are no more earthquakes or orcano's!
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Evelien
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watch the storm
Zat op jullie verslag van Australie te wachten! Al zou het gat in de ozonlaag rond deze tijd enkele cm's gekrompen zijn, kijken jullie toch goed uit voor stofstormen en andere brullende bergen? Mijn eerste 2 dagen op mijn nieuwe job zitten erop! Ik ga van mijn nieuwe contacten en projecten genieten, want werken doen we zowiezo toch al veel te veel! Kus Hou jullie Haaks! WE